


The Horses Run

by rosereddawn



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2018-08-13 14:51:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7980538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosereddawn/pseuds/rosereddawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all softness can be worn away by war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Horses Run

Faramir’s skin is warm to touch. It is rough on his cheeks where the stubble of his beard mocks every shave within hours. It is calloused and hardened where his hands close around the grip of sword or shield, and welted where a blade cut across his abdomen. The lines on his right arm, a pale shade of pink, barely register under Eowyn’s fingertip. When she asks, he raises his eyebrows before he runs a hand across them. He doesn’t remember how he got them either. 

But then the dark spot in the V between thumb and index finger catches his attention. “Oh, I remember this one,” he says and there’s a glint to his eyes and a soft smile curling his lips. Down in the library, he was learning how to write but his brother would rather learn how to spar, and when Faramir proved unwilling, an inked quill ended up standing in for a sword. 

He lingers over the spot and Eowyn doesn’t ask again. 

There comes a time when all words of his comfort have been shared. The last polished stone of grief is everyone’s own to carry.

She likes to imagine him in the library as a young boy, curious and quiet, not yet hardened by the necessities of battle. Sometimes she finds him reading in a spot of sunlight and takes a moment to watch his fingers stroke across the pages, so delicate with the easily torn paper. His lips whisper mute words to himself, and she always leaves on tip-toes so as not to wake him from his world.

Out on the balcony, she turns her face into the breeze. Rohan and its stiff winds chasing over the open seem so far away. The war seems so long gone. Its shadow still lingers in the broken walls, the singed doors and burst windows; it is present in the clumsy movements of men learning to walk again, in the red eyes of parents and siblings and widows who’ve run out of tears. But the weapons have been stashed, and so has every armour. The horses roam free across the meadows until late into the evenings. Hearts are daring to swell with joy again. 

But the armour still weighs on the set of Faramir’s shoulders. It is easy to see. At night, in their quarters, Eowyn unties the laces and strips him off his garments and runs her fingers across the freckled skin, the hard muscle, until the warrior starts to drain from his features. 

As he lies down in fur and linen, she runs her fingers across all that skin in search of a spot that is not weathered by sun and rain and long nights on the watc. A spot of innocence. She wants to find a trace of the delicacy she’s seen in him, seeks proof that no war could scab every part of a man that is vulnerable. 

He exhales as her hands grace his flanks, his breath hitches into a laugh and his muscles flex as if he didn’t know whether to escape or move into her featherlight touch, and his eyes flutter shut as she merely holds him. 

“My love,” she whispers.

The slow fire burns in the open place, warming their room. The light flickers across his pale complexion and she can see the movement of his chest as he breathes. When she lies a flat palm there, she can feel the beat of his heart, too.

He turns his face away into the pillow and his eyes are shut so tightly. There is a name on his lips - her name - that he cannot fill with breath, and he tries until he whispers, “Give me time.”


End file.
